The Arctic gave aviators their first taste of polar operations and yielded many surprises, as Robin Evans reveals...

The bare Dornier-Wal N24 is inched across the ice of King’s Bay, Spitsbergen. Could the lone figure at far left be Roald Amundsen?
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From the Geographic North Pole, every direction is south. The Magnetic Poles lie elsewhere, but 90° latitude north and south attract a hardy breed.